Grand Mercure Shijiazhuang

... a noodle dish.

Luke and I went back another night, but lacked the mandarin to order the noodles, but we managed to get the lamb and some chinese beers. That same night we also managed to catch a live crab that was escaping from th restaurant. This was extremely entertaining for the other diners.

There are not alot of foriegners in Shijiazhuang. We were a real novelty. When luke was outside some ...

... he looks much older than me he's only 31. I ask him how much he makes for each 1,200 km trip, he says about 500 yuan. He says he can make the trip 20 times a month. He's got two sons, a wife, a nephew, both of his parents to support. Where he comes from he has to save money for his sons' wedding and the construction of their new home when they get married. It cost 60,000 yuan to find a wife and 100,000 to 150,000 to build a new house. He admits he'll ...

... needed- Jack translated everything of course.
These guys could DRINK! By noon they had finished off 10 bottles of
baijiu. They kept insisting that I drink with them but since I had to teach in
the afternoon, I got away with only having to do a few- thank god, I hate
baijiu.

Some of you know about Mickey- used to work for him downtown
on a regular basis. His company went bankrupt and he said he needed more time
to pay me. Although ...

... m either traveling or working a lot on the weekends, I usually never can but this Sunday I made a point not to schedule any lessons so could go. We took two cars out to Dragon Lake- about an hour outside the city. It was beautiful. We went on a speed boat, then went on a paddle boat, then caught some worm-fish things, had a nice picnic and relaxed by the water. It was great. Hoping to be able to go out with them again sometime before I leave. I really like both of their families.

... which lies to the west, provide charming natural scenery. Mt. Cangyan Scenic Area and Zhangshiyan Scenic Area also attract visitors from all over China and the world. As the economic, political, cultural and scientific center of Hebei Province, Shijiazhuang is becoming more and more ...

... a tad overbearing- he doesn't have much time to just be a kid and play. Although he seems to enjoy everything he's involved in, I have a feeling his parents don't give him much of a choice. I'm trying to make our time together really fun so he'll continue to like learning English. My friend Hanne is gonna be leaving soon so I'll be taking over one of her students. And Mickey asked if I could start teaching triplet girls ...

... head english teachers of the classes that were bad and some have been very helpful with discipline while others have done nothing. One teacher asked me to come to her class so the two boys that were bad could apologize to me- when i showed up i saw two boys standing there but only one of them was one of the bad ones. the other boy was actually very good in my class, always had a smile on his face and participated. he definitely wasn't ...

... hour) with tv on the wall, computer system to search songs and nice couches. we had a blast! 've haven't seen anyone with a disability/handicap which lead to them explaining to us that physical/mental disabilities are frowned upon in china-very very sad but they told us if they can detect a disability with an ultra sound, they'll usually abort it because it's not considered acceptable in their society and ...

... so they aren't so crammed and it'll allow me to do more activities. Helen was so cute when she was telling me about the room on the way there- she's like i'm sorry it is so dirty now, but don't worry, the students will be happy to clean it for you this afternoon- i was like oh, i can do it, and she's like no, they really want to do it for you- their excited to be able to go to this room and want to help. Helen also said I can put up ...

... ride to the question in my head repeating, "What am I doing in China?" I tried to calm myself by trying to think "what's the worse that could happen" but was met with many example which is unlike my personality. These thoughts included bombs, feces, and death by taxi. We arrived in the Beijing airport by Helen, a woman from the Foreign Affaris Office as well as a broken suitcase. They gave Alissa a new suitcase and let her keep the old one which made me think that with this ...